The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick

“Then,” the guide said, as his herded group of sight­seers gawked, “how do you explain your unauthorized presence here in the ladies’ section of this Uncle John’s Li’l Hut-sut station?”

The Telpor technician shrugged, flushing crimson.

“A Thingism,” the guide said in an aside to Freya. “He flushes at his presence in a comfort station.” He sniggered, and the group of sightseers laughed to various degrees. “I hold this job,” the guide informed Freya as he expertly unfastened her from the manual ex­tension of the pseudo vanity table, “for good reason; my wit delights the multitude.”

The Telpor technician said sullenly, “Thingismtry is degenerate.”

“Perhaps,” the guide admitted. He steadied Freya as the vanity table reluctantly released her; in a gentle­manly way he assisted her away from the feral device and over to his throng. “But it helps pass the dull hours away; does it not?” He addressed his tame collection of sightseers.

They nodded obediently, the men eying Freya with in­terest; she saw, now, that her blouse had been neatly shredded by the arm of the vanity table, and, with numb fingers, she gathered it about her.

“No need of that,” the guide said softly in her ear. “A bit of exposed female bosom also helps pass the dull hours.” He grinned at her. “Hmm,” he added, half to himself. “I wouldn’t be surprised if President Jones wanted to interview you personally. He takes a grave in­terest in matters of this sort, these civil disturbances which upset the orderly—”

“Please just get me out of here,” Freya said tightly.

“Of course.” The guide led her to the stairs. Behind them, the Telpor technician was ignored. “But I don’t think you can avoid spending a few moments with the august President of Whale’s Mouth, in view of—or perhaps I should say because of—the anatomy which you reveal so—”

“President Omar Jones,” Freya said, “does not exist.”

“Oh?” The guide glanced at her mockingly. “Are you certain, miss? Are you truly ready to invite a little of Dr. Lupov’s S.A.T. to remedy a rather disordered lit­tle feminine mental imbalance? Eh?”

She groaned. And allowed the guide to escort her and the group of sightseers up the stairs, out of Uncle John’s Li’l Hut-sut comfort station and onto the surface of—Newcolonizedland.

“I’d like to have your complete, legal name, miss,” the guide was murmuring to her; he now held a book of forms in his left hand and a pen in his right. “Last name first, please. And if you have any I.D. on you I’d be much obliged to see that, too. Ah, Miss Freya Holm.” He glanced at her wallet, then at her face, with a totally new expression. I wonder what that means, Freya won­dered.

She had an intuition that she would soon know.

And it would not be pleasant.

At the top of the stairs two agents of Trails of Hoff­man Limited met her and the guide, expertly relieved the guide of his self-assumed responsibilities.

“We’ll take her from here on in,” the taller of the two THL agents explained curtly to the guide; he took Freya by the shoulder and led her, with his companion, toward a parked official-looking oversize flapple.

The guide, perplexed, looking after them, murmured, “Gracious.” And then returned to his customary duties; he herded his group off in the other direction, circumspectly minding his own business; the expression on his face showed all too well that he recognized that somehow he had strayed out of his depth. His discom­fort at unexpectedly encountering the two THL agents seemed to Freya almost as great as her own . . . and her awareness of the lethal aspect of THL grew with this recognition—in fact burgeoned into overwhelming immensity.

Even here, on Fomalhaut IX—the power, the dull, metallic size of THL was matched by nothing else; the great entity stood alone, without a real antagonist. And here the UN failed to manifest its own authority. Or so, she reflected somberly, it would seem.

The contest between Horst Bertold and Theo Ferry seemed to have resolved itself before genuinely getting underway; fundamentally it was no contest at all. And Theo Ferry, more than anyone else, knew it.

Beyond any doubt.

“Your operations here,” she told the two THL agents, “are absolutely illegal.” And, having an­nounced this, she felt the utter futility of mere words. How could an empty statement abolish THL, or for that matter, even these two minor instruments of its author­ity? The futility of the struggle seemed to her, at this instant, beyond compare; she felt her verve, her energy quotient, wither.

Meanwhile, the two THL agents led her rapidly toward their parked motor-on flapple.

When the flapple had achieved reasonable altitude, one of the THL agents produced a large hardbound volume, examined it, then passed it to his companion, who, after an interval, then abruptly handed it to Freya.

“What’s this?” she demanded. “And where are we going?”

“You may be interested in this,” the taller agent in­formed her. “I think you’ll find it well worth your time. Go ahead; open it.”

With almost occult suspicion, Freya studied the cover. “An economic history of Newcolonizedland,” she said, with distaste. More of the propaganda, lurid and false, of the irreal president’s regnancy, she real­ized, and started to hand it back. The agent, however, refused to accept the book; he shook his head curtly. And so, with reluctance, she opened to the back, glanced with distaste over the index.

And saw her own name.

“That’s right,” the tall THL agent said with a smirk. “You’re in it, Miss Holm. So’s that fathead, ben Applebaum.”

She turned pages and saw that it was so. Will this tell me, she wondered, what’s happened to Rachmael? Finding the page reference, she at once turned to it. Her hands shook as she read the startling passage.

“What way?” Rachmael demanded, lifting his eyes from the page and confronting the creature before him. “You mean become like you?” His body cringed; he retreated physically from even the notion of it, let alone its presence here before him.

“Good lord,” Freya said. And read intently on.

“All flesh must die.” the eye-eater said, and giggled.

Aloud, Freya said, ” ‘The eye-eater.’ ” Chilled, she said to the two

See Note on page V

“Let me go,” she choked; her fingers, torn from the trigger, dug into their clutching hands. I couldn’t do it, she realized; I couldn’t activate the darn mechanism. Weariness filled her as she felt their hands rip loose the destruct mechanism, tear it apart, then drop it into the waste slot of the flapple.

“It would have destroyed all of us,” the taller agent gasped as he and his companion confronted her ac­cusingly, with indignation mixed with apprehension; she had genuinely frightened them by her near-suicide. As far as they knew, it had been close, very close. But actually she could not have done it at all.

The man’s companion muttered, “We better consult the book. See what it says; assuming of course it says anything.” Together the two of them pored over the book, ignoring her; Freya, with trembling fingers, lit a cigarette, stared sightlessly through the window at the ground below.

Trees . . . houses. Exactly as the TV screen had promised. Jolted, she thought, Where’s the garrison state? Where’s the war I saw? The battle I was a part of, only a little while ago?

It made no sense.

“We were fighting,” she said at last.

Startled, the THL agents glanced at her, then at one another. “She must have gotten into one of the paraworlds,” one said presently to his companion; they both nodded in attentive agreement. “Silver? White? I forget which Lupov calls it. Not The Clock, though.”

“And not Blue,” the other agent murmured. Again the two of them returned to the large hardbound book; again they ignored her.

Strange, Freya thought. It made no sense. And yet the two THL agents appeared to understand. Will I ever know? she asked herself. And if so, will it be in time?

Several worlds, she realized. And each of them dif­ferent. And—if they’re looking in that book, not to see what has happened but to see what will happen . . . then it must have something to do with time.

Time-travel. The UN’s time-warpage weapon.

Evidently Sepp von Einem had gotten hold of it. The senile old genius and his disturbed proleptic protégé Gloch had altered it, god only knew how. But effec­tively; that much was obvious.

The flapple began to descend.

Glancing, she saw below them a large ship moored by its tail, in flight position, poised to ascend at any moment; in fact, wisps of fuel-vapor trickled from its rear. A big one, she decided; it belonged to someone of importance. Possibly President Omar Jones. Or—

Or worse.

She had a good idea that it was not Omar Jones’ ship—even if such a person existed. Undoubtedly the ship belonged to Theo Ferry. And, as she watched the ship grow, a bizarre idea occurred to her. What if the Omphalos had been beaten, years ago, in its flight from the Sol system to Fomalhaut? This ship, huge and menacing, with its pitted gray hull . . . certainly it did have the sullied, darkened appearance of a much-utilized vessel; had it, at some earlier time, crossed deep space between the two star systems?

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